A CASE STUDY ON BUREAU OF INTERNAL REVENUE -

REVENUE REGION 6, MANILA AS HOST COMPANY IN

THE STUDENT APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM

In Partial Fulfillment of
The Requirements for
Bachelor of Science in Business Administration
Major in Internal Auditing

Submitted by:

Betay, Abigail O.
Cabingan, Mae E.

Submitted to:

Prof. Rowena Rufo, SAP Adviser

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………….

COMPANY PROFILE……………………………………………………………………….

CLASSROOM LEARNING USED

DURING THE ON THE JOB TRAINING …………………………………………….

ISSUES AND CONCERN ABOUT THE HOST COMPANY…………………………….

RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE HOST COMPANY………………………………

SUMMARY OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS…………………………………………………....

RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE THE

STUDENT APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM………………………………………....

ATTACHMENT A - ENDORSEMENT LETTER BY HOST COMPANY…………………

ATTACHMENT B - RESUME (IABF Prescribed Format)..............................................

ATTACHMENT C - DAILY TIME RECORD DULY SIGNED

BY IMMEDIATE SUPERVISOR……………………………………………………..

ATTACHMENT D - JOURNAL / CERTIFICATES OF

ATTENDED SAP ACTIVITIES………………………………………………………

ATTACHMENT E - CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION…………………………………..

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With deepest gratitude and appreciation, we humbly give thanks to the people who, with

all they can, helped us in making Student Apprenticeship Program a possible one.

To our parent, for their unconditional love and unending support, for providing all our

needs morally and financially, for understanding us during our exhausting days, for their

advices and for always being there for us no matter what.

To our SAP adviser, Ma’am Rowena Rufo, for encouraging, guiding and supporting us

from the start until the final level.

To our SAP coordinator, Ma’am Faye Marie Abellana, for being the head of this Student

Apprenticeship Program. Without her leadership and persistent help this internship

would not have been possible.

To Bureau of Internal Revenue-Documents Processing Division, headed by our

Division Chief, Charlie Esto and Assistant Division Chief, Melchor Furio for giving us a

warm welcome and teaching us how is it to work on their division.

We would also like to thank our supervisors, Ms. Marie Cueva and Mrs. Luzviminda

Racoma, for all their advices and for everything they taught us during our stay that

contributed to our growth as a human being.

To our co-trainees and friends, for the support and comfort whenever we’re having

difficulties during our training. I thank them for the bond and camaraderie we shared

together.

Above all, to our Almighty God, for His unending and unconditional love, for all the

blessing He is showering to us each day of our life. For His guidance during our

internship and making this one possible. I thank Him for His comfort and making us

stronger. By His grace, we are able to finish our internship successfully.

COMPANY PROFILE
Bureau of Internal Revenue

The history of the Bureau of Internal Revenue can be traced starting from the Spanish

Era. This is where the Contrador de’ Resultas served as the Chief Royal Accountant whose

functions are similar to today’s Commissioner of Internal Revenue. It was until the American era,

where the Bureau of Internal Revenue was formally created under the Reorganization Act 1189,

dated July 2, 1904. On August 1, 1904 the BIR was finally organized and started its operations.

During its humble beginnings, the BIR started having only 69 employees, which consisted of the

Collector, Vice Collector, one Chief clerk, one Law Clerk, one Records clerk, and three Division

Chiefs. It was John S. Hord, that served as the first commissioner of the BIR.

In Present times, the Bureau of Internal Revenue is now mandated to be under the

supervision of the Department of Finance, and its powers and duties shall comprehend the

assessment and collection of all national internal revenue taxes, fees, and charges, and the

enforcement of all forfeitures, penalties, and fines connected therewith, including the execution of

judgements in all cases decided in its favor, by the Court of Tax Appeals and the ordinary courts.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue has its mission of, collecting taxes through just enforcement of

tax laws for nation building, and the upliftment of the lives of the Filipinos. Alongside with its

mission, is it’s vision of being an institution of service, excellence and integrity. The BIR’s core

values, which every BIR employee should have and possess, are the following: God-fearing,

Accountability, Innovativeness, Integrity, Competency, Transparency, and Patriotism. All

together, these core values are the building blocks of the BIR’s guiding principle, “Service

Excellence with Integrity and Professionalism.”

Bureau of Internal Revenue Organization

The Bureau of Internal Revenue National Office can be found at Quezon City where the

office of the Chief Commissioner can be found. At present, Caesar Dulay serves as the Chief

Commissioner of the BIR. Following the Commissioner, are the Deputy Commissioners of the

four main groups on the Bureau. The four main groups are the, Operations Group, Legal Group,

Information Systems Group, and the Resource Management Group. The following Deputy

Commissioners are Arnel SD Guballa, Marissa O. Cabreros, Lanee C. David, Celia C. King

respectively. For the Bureau of Internal Revenue fully complete its duties and responsibilities to

the Filipino people, from the National Office, its divided into Revenue Regional Offices, and sub

further divided into Revenue District Offices each serving different roles and responsibilities that

are still all connected with each other.

Revenue Regional Offices and Revenue District Offices

In a total, there are 19 Regional Offices. Revenue Region 1 is Calasiao, down to Revenue

Region 19, Davao City. Also, there are a total of 116 Revenue District Offices. Each Regional

Offices has the following Offices

Legal Division

Assessment Division

Collection Division

Finance Division

Administrative, and Human Resource Management Division

Regional Investigation Division

Document Processing Division

Revenue Region 6 - City of Manila

The Revenue Region 6 City of Manila whose office is at Tuazon Building, Solana cor.,

Beaterio st., Intramuros Manila, is also where the Revenue District offices 29-34 and 36 can be

found. The Regional Director is Romulo Aguila Jr., together with him is the Assistant Regional

Director Josephine S. Virtucio. The Revenue Region 6 office has 2 office buildings, Tuazon and

Benlife building. In these buildings are where the Revenue District Offices and Divisions are

located. There are 7 Revenue District Offices under the City of Manila and these are the following:

RDO 29 - Tondo - San Nicolas

RDO 30 - Binondo

RDO 31 - Sta. Cruz

RDO 32 - Quiapo, Sampaloc, Sta. Mesa, San Miguel

RDO 33 - Intramuros, Ermita, Malate

RDO 34 - Paco, Pandacan, Sta. Ana, San Andres

RDO 36 - Palawan

Document Processing Division

The Bureau of Internal Revenue started and added this division to join with the other

divisions last 2014. Some of the employees during the trainees length of stay, says that this

division is somewhat a project, and will see if things will turn out well. Each Revenue Regional

Office has its Document Processing Division, wherein the submitted tax returns by the taxpayers

in the Revenue District Offices goes straight in here for batching, encoding and archiving.

The Document Processing Division in the RR6 - City of Manila is headed by Mr. Charlie

Esto as its Division Chief, and Mr. Mel Furio as its Assistant Division Chief. The DPD has a total

of four sections. The Administrative section headed by Ms. Anna Victoria Correa. The Data
Control Section, headed by Ms. Marie Cueva. The Data Capture Section, headed by Ms.

Luzviminda Racoma. And lastly, the Suspense resolution Section, headed by Ms. Maria Gracia

Sarmiento

CLASSROOM LEARNING USED DURING THE ON THE JOB TRAINING

Communication Skills

As the popular saying goes, “no man is an island”, and that is very true when we have

started this Apprenticeship Program. The first day of Internship was a very challenging

experience, of adjusting ourselves into a new environment and learning how to adapt in it. At first,

we are just mere observers of what is happening, and who the people around us are. However,

we also know that things shouldn’t go long like this. That’s why we started to go out of our shells,

and start communicating with them. Communication as thought in the classroom, and during

almost in all of our management classes, is the act of exchanging information. Communication is

important between us Interns and our supervisors. Communication is the key that connects us to

our supervisors. By communicating, we are able to exchange information, them telling us what

are the tasks we are to perform, and in return we can response if we can do the job, or ask for

help whenever there is difficulty in executing the said task. Through communication, our other

workmates also get to know us and we also get to know them. Since we stay in one section for

almost in the 8 hours of work, communication and small chit-chats isn’t impossible not to happen.

They get to know more of us when they start asking questions like what our course is, and what

our plans are in the future, especially when we finish this internship and finally graduate. But of

course, more than finally learning how to communicate with them easily, listening is also an

important skill that we have applied. Tasks can be sometimes so many that instructions are just

being given once. That’s why listening is important to avoid further mistakes that will just cause

delay in the whole work process, from this, our supervisors can give us feedbacks regarding the

performance that we have been showing and performing to them. As days pass by, our feelings

get at ease with them. We get to communicate everything with them, breaking down the wall that

first hinders us communicating during our first days.

 Interpersonal communication is one good lesson that we have applied, because

communicating with the employees there, is also one way of showing that we are being able to

adapt into the workplace environment that they have. However one type of communication that

we have also applied during our Internship is learning what paralanguages are. A type of

nonverbal communication, that includes the pitch, tempo, and hesitations in verbal

communication. Learning what are the nonverbal communications is an important lesson that we

have applied during our internship. Our division chief, sometimes roams around but you can feel

the heavy feeling sometimes when he is just walking and observing. By that, we already know

that he is not in a good mood, and that we should not do anything that may cause for him to have

a temper. We get to adjust to the mood of office simply by observing their ways and actions. By

that we are able to distinguish if it’s time to have fun or it's a time to get serious. Also by knowing

what their shown paralanguages are, we are also being sensitive to what is happening inside the

workplace.

Management Skills

Several management skills are also applied during our stay in the Document Processing

Division. The following are; conceptual skills, human relations skills, and technical skills.

Document Processing Division consists of four sections that are connected with one another. In

other words, the documents goes into a process from one section into another and can not

advance to another section without passing the one prior to it. Having good conceptual skills

makes us have a more depth understanding of how the work is being done in the office. By that

we get to know what we are really doing and how essential each and every task that we are

assigned in to. Another skill that we have applied are our human relation skills. As discussed

earlier, communication is the key that connects us Interns to our Supervisors and co-employees.
Having good human relations skills makes the work a lot easier, for we are being able to express

ourselves freely when we are with them, yet still with the limitation that they are still of being higher

authority from us. Lastly are our technical skills. Working for the DPD (Document Processing

Division) also requires us to apply some technical skills. We are sometimes being asked to

encode, verify, check and even type certain documents. By applying the required skills for those

tasks, we are being able to perform the tasks being required.

Auditing

As an Internal auditor we should always be vigilant of the processes, document and data

that we are handling. One task that is assigned to one of us is to verify the encoded batches.

Wherein you really need to check if the documents are complete per batch and it is arranged

properly per DLN (Document Locator Number). Tiring as it can be, but I really became careful

and vigilant in counting and double-checking and auditing the documents if they are complete.

Making sure of this will hinder future problems, once the batches are now transferred for archiving.

ISSUES AND CONCERN ABOUT THE HOST COMPANY

Data Control Section

Out of all the section in DPD, the Data Control Section have the most number of works to

do. It is composed of five steps; Receiving, Checking, TIN Verification, Sorting and Batching.

In my three months of stay in BIR - DPD, I noticed some problems in the area. Given the

fact that there are series of work to do, DCS needs more workers. Without us trainees they might

have a slow progress on the massive number of paper works. Because of having only few number

of people, workers tend to rush their work to cope of with the deadline set by the Division Chief

and due to urgency there are a lot of misstatements or errors executed by them.

Another concern I noticed e is the lack of equipment and supplies. Because of the faulty

computer equipment, I observed that some employees are borrowing keyboards and mouse to

the other workers. This is causing a slight disturbance to the working and also slows down the

progress of their output.

Lastly, I observed that their working station is not organized enough. The DCS needs to

maximize their space. There are a lot of idle tables. Also the returns they are receiving were just

placed on the floor, no proper storage is provided to store the files.

Data Capture Section

 Being able to work with the Data Capture Section, there are some concerns that I have

been able to observe. These concerns has something to do in connection with them whenever

they do the encoding process.

It has been a frequent complaint that I can hear from my workmates are their

malfunctioning keyboards. There are times, that even if they press the certain number in their

keyboards several times, it’s still not responding, or sometimes, instead that it should just be input

once, the number appears to be twice on the screen. The keyboards, due to the passage of time,

frequent use, and the enough amount of force that are being pressed on its keys can really be

subject to malfunctions. However even if the problem is continuous, solution hasn’t really come

yet. Even if the workers of the Data Capture Section are requesting for new set of keyboards, it

should also need to be understood that it's not easy to procure new equipment, due that it should

undergo processes such as finding a budget that can be used for buying. The Division however

has tried to solve the problem, and conducted a clean-up of the keyboards with the hope that it

would somehow solve the problem.

Not all has the privilege to encode, and access data. I have learned during my stay that

the employee must have been granted an “access” before that employee can use and access the

ITS System of their computers. For the employees to gain this said access, he or she must have

attended several seminars, that can brief that employee and prepare him for encoding. However,

even if the employee has already completed the said set of seminars, still the access code is not

yet being granted. That’s why the employee can not encode tax returns under his name, instead

he borrows the access code of his other office mates whenever they are not around, or has a

seminar to be attended to. Sometimes, if there is really no chance to encode, that employee

without access, is tasked to do other duties such as the verification and the batching of batches.
I find this an issue, because of the slow response and updating of the access. The employee

already deserves that access, however it is still not being granted. But even so, the trainee has

also learned, that even if the scenario is that, the Administrative section has not failed in updating

the National Office for granting the access to the employees.

In General

The employees of the Document Processing Division are coming from different locations.

Not all of them reside around the Manila area, but some of them came from the north and others

from the south. That’s why sometimes, it is understood why others can’t make it on-time at 8AM.

Then, flexi-time cam and was offered to the employees. Not only to the Document Processing

Division, but also to the other divisions and district offices as well. However, the application for

this flexi-time was not clear and others are still not granted about their request.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE HOST COMPANY

Data Control Section

 Employees should always be reminded to do their work with extra precaution to avoid

errors, with this, they could save more time and they can be more efficient and can have a good

outcome on their report. Regarding the malfunctioning computer equipment, the Division needs

to request for replacement of the malfunctioning equipment but it is not an easy process. In order

to provide a new one, they have to make an available budget for it.

Concerning about their work space, they need to provide a good storage for the files

because I noticed that some papers are just placed on the floor. Those papers are important

because those are the returns of the taxpayers. There are times that some returns are missing

and I don’t know how the employees are resolving that matter. We cannot avoid incidents, water

might get spilled on the files or some might get misplaced or stolen so a good storage of files

should be provided in order to prevent these events.

Data Capture Section

There should be frequent monitoring and checking of the equipments or devices that are

being used by the office, especially with the keyboards as raised in the issues and concerns.

Always making sure if each equipment or device is still working at its best condition. Also the

reporting of malfunctioning devices should be done immediately. Once a problem is seen, it must

be reported immediately so that the higher offices can find a way to resolve it, or find a budget to

replace it if ever the need already arises for it to be replaced immediately. Also, I think that the

employees of the data Capture Section should be more brave in telling this problem, since this

devices involves their work. Because of what I have observed, they only have the guts to tell this

whenever people from the Administrative Section are doing inspections. But, if they report this

immediately, then solution may possibly come earlier.

 When it comes to the granting of Access for the employees to be able to encode the tax

returns, I believe that the solution to this should be a joint effort of the Data capture Section and

the Administrative Section. Employees from our section should be more eager in following-up the

progress of their Access code. To always ask and inquire of their access code. The same should

be done by the Administrative section, they should also be eager in following it up in the National

Office for the employee’s access codes. Workers will be more efficient if they will be granted their

Access code immediately, for if they have already their Access, more forms can be encoded, and

more batches could be done in one day.

In General

The Flexitime should be thoroughly examined and approved for the employees especially

when that employee deserves it the most. FlexiTime is something that can help the employee

work at his finest, and let him maximize his work and efficiency. If that employee is really a morning

person, and does tasks immediately in the morning he should be approved of the FlexiTime. But

again, in line with this, still the Daily Time Records of that employee should still be considered,

for it would be hard to consider allowing an employee letting him go to work and leave work early

if his current daily time record doesn’t reflect that kind of attendance.
SUMMARY OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Student apprenticeship program is an integral part of every college student. It is when

and where we can apply our gained knowledge and skills to the work and tasks given. It

is like a foundation in order for us to be ready in facing the corporate world.

In Bureau of Internal Revenue, we learned a lot. Though it’s not purely about auditing, it

is more on office work and paperwork. Having no any background in office work is a bit

challenging. I just perceived that being in the corporate world, you should know how to

be versatile. I experienced Receiving, Checking, TIN Verification, Sorting and Batching

and even photocopying. These are the basic and daily routine in the workplace but I can

consider that these are important. It may sound easy and simple but it is a privileged to

be trusted by the BIR in letting us to handle and entrust those files to us.

Most of the times, we are receiving and checking the returns. Checking if the Taxpayers

Identification Number, matches the name that was encoded is the BCS and also checking

if the encoded amount in the BCS that was paid by the taxpayer matches the receipt given
by the bank. We also make sure that the arrangement of the returns counterparts

chronologically from the transmittal, we do this in order to have an easier TIN Verification.

In doing this, it needs an extra precaution because we do not want to commit errors that

could give a problem and a waste of time for the other employees

Aside from receiving and checking, I also tried sorting the returns after it passed the TIN

Verification. In sorting, the returns should be arrange according to its form type. BIR have

more than 30 type of forms so in sorting, we need to be careful and make sure not to mix

a certain form type to the others. After sorting the forms, we have to make sure that our

count of the returns matches the count in the transmittal, getting an error with this can

cause conflict to the last step which is batching so we have to be cautious and pay

attention while counting or else we have to recount it again.

I also experienced TIN Verification, here we need an access to a computer. It is where

the employees are checking the returns if the TIN is out of region. They only allowed us

to do it once because trainees should not really have the right of access but at least they

allowed us to experience it and let us learn some of the steps in TIN verification.

Above anything else, I can consider that all the work and tasks assigned to me are very

significant to my OJT experience. Yes it may look simple but it helped me to be a better

and competitive person in my future life in the corporate world.

RECOMMENDATION TO IMPROVE STUDENT APPRENTICESHIP

PROGRAM